BERKELEY — Topo is a little bear who dreams of grand adventures. He makes elaborate plans, collects the necessary gear, but never actually embarks on any of these adventures.

Topo is a character in artist Mike Dutton’s new comic strip, “One Swoop Fell.”

“It’s kind of autobiographical,” Dutton said.

Fortunately for Topo, he makes some friends who convince him to take the next step. One of these characters is a squirrel, inspired by Dutton’s wife, Alexandra.

Dutton is an artist on the rise. The Berkeley-based illustrator is drawing pictures for an upcoming coloring book, he has launched a Web site for his comic strip that will go live in the coming weeks, and his work will be featured in an upcoming art auction at Emeryville’s Pixar Animation Studios to raise money for a threatened forest in Japan.

Dutton, 31, draws inspiration for his whimsical illustrations and paintings from his life, as well as the world around him. His works may feature animals in fantastical situations — such as a pig in aviator goggles piloting an elaborate winged machine — or pastel landscapes and city scenes capturing familiar images, such as a West Oakland overpass, or a lone tree in the Berkeley Hills.

“I try to draw what is around me,” Dutton said. “I’m always locked in a push-and-pull between an accurate portrayal of the situation and the emotional content of the piece, whether it’s whimsical, wistful, bittersweet, and so on.”

Although Dutton may seem a bit shy and says his friends encourage him to be more adventurous, his creativity has allowed him to push his personal boundaries and his upbringing gave him a diverse perspective of the world.

Dutton said he wants to capture a moment with his work, but also feel a sense of adventure. Illustrating children’s books and writing a comic allow Dutton to keep the adventure alive from scene to scene and page to page.

This desire for adventure landed him a position drawing sketches for Dover Publication’s upcoming coloring book “Exploring Ecosystems.” Dutton will also be featured in the Totoro Forest Project, a fundraiser to preserve the Sayma Forest next to Tokyo, which includes an art auction at Pixar on Sept. 6.

Despite his current success, Dutton admits he was too self-confident when he was young. Between 1998 and 2000, Dutton attended Academy of Art College in San Francisco, majoring in illustration art. In 2000, Dutton quit school because he felt he had learned what he needed in order to “strike out” on his own.

“You can take all the anatomy and figure drawing classes, learn to draw perfect proportions, but at some point you gotta start breaking all those rules,” Dutton said.

But instead of putting his art education to work, he spent two years working as a workers’ compensation claims adjuster. This experience made Dutton re-evaluate what he wanted out of life, leading to his re-entry into the art world.

“Life is very short, and being at that job made me realize how easy it is to waste it,” Dutton said.

His wife, Alexandra, a preschool teacher, said she has a job she loves and enjoys and wants the same for Dutton.

Until Topo, Dutton’s comic book alter-ego, encounters his friend the squirrel, he is too timid to explore.

Growing up an army brat gave Dutton the opportunity to see a lot of the world, and he yearns to see more.

“I “… moved around a lot, so that is probably why I drew a lot, because I didn’t have a lot of friends,” Dutton said.

He lived in Korea, Texas, Georgia and Monterey, and moved to the Bay Area in 1993.

He credits his parents with his early interest in art.

“At an early age, I saw that I had artistic parents, even if it wasn’t what they were doing for a living,” Dutton said. “My dad was interested in photography and my mom did a little bit of everything — ceramics, Chinese watercolors.”

Although his artistic parents supported him, his second-grade teacher did not. Dutton said he proudly showed his second-grade teacher comics he drew, hoping she would share them with the rest of the class, but the teacher was not impressed with the reproduction of Garfield comics in which Dutton made flatulence jokes.

“He was drawing when he should have been doing math,” said Dutton’s father, Andrew Dutton, of Rio Vista. Even though Andrew Dutton had to speak to the teacher, he kept copies of his son’s juvenile Garfield comics for sentiment.

Dutton may have preferred drawing to schoolwork in second grade, but if he had always abided by the rules he could very well be a workers’ compensation claims adjuster, and probably wouldn’t have found the work of his hero and inspiration, N.C. Wyeth, a realist painter and illustrator who is influenced by romantic authors like Henry David Thoreau.

“I actually discovered his work when I was playing hooky at art school,” Dutton said.

Dutton said he tries to reach a broad audience with his work.

“There are some people in the high-brow art world that kind of look down on it,” Dutton said, “but that is not who I am making art for.”

In September, Dutton’s painting, “Cypress of Sighs,” will be featured in the Totoro Forest Project.

As for Topo the bear, he may not have seen every corner of the world thus far, but his friends will make sure backdrops from Europe, Korea, and even the Bay Area appear in his upcoming comics.

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